Celebrating Our First Year Together

Noah's Gotcha Day

February 2, 2013

     I can hardly believe that this little guy has been home for more than a year now. It has been a whirlwind year. Two new additions to our family, lots of transitions and we are still trying to figure things out. When Noah came home it was such a blur, I was so happy, scared, relieved, and full of anxiety about what to expect and how to be a good mom to him. I am not gonna lie, those first two week were really hard. I thought I was doing something wrong because I wasn't on cloud nine and completely elated. I was sleep deprived, struggling to bond, and feeling frustrated that things weren't going the way I imagined they would. He was already twenty months old, and to him we were complete strangers so he was really resistant to sleeping, communicating and connecting to us. I had no idea what was going on in that little mind. But, eventually week by week and month by month his trust for us grew, and our bond blossomed.  

    

     Noah is such a sweet natured boy, so loving and caring. He has a gentle spirit, a love for music and is always laughing. It warms my heart to see him happy. We love him so much, and know that our family would not be complete without him. I wish sometimes people would be more honest with their adoption stories, because it's not all rainbows and sunshine in the beginning. But HE IS SO WORTH IT! I just wanted to share our story and hope it would inspire another family to be forever changed by the love of a child. We still have struggles but so does every parent whether your child is biological or adopted. They are worth the fighting for, and we are so thankful that God chose us to be his parents. 

John 1:16 From the fullness go His Grace we have received one blessing after another.

Our First Year with Noah….

 

 One Year Later…..

Long Time, No Blog......

I can't believe it's been almost 8 months since I have updated this blog, but in my defense a whole bunch of changes have occurred since March. so, I thought I would go month by month and give you a quick update. So, here it goes....

April
In April we had our first family of 4 pictures. (adcockstudios.com) It was very surreal to see Noah in these pictures. It felt like we had been wanting and waiting for him for so long and now that he was here it just seemed so unbelievable. He's such a cutie and we are so blessed.

May

We celebrated two very important milestones for our family. We celebrated Noah's 2nd birthday and also the anniversary of the day we accepted our referral for Noah. What that means is, last year on May 5, 2012 we received an email and some pictures of Noah from our adoption agency. From the moment we saw his sweet face, we knew he was going to be our son. So for our family this is also a birthday for Noah coming into our lives. 

In May we also got some difficult news. My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. We were all so shocked and really didn't know what that road was going to look like. All we knew was that she was going to have a double mastectomy in July and would have to wait for results from that surgery to see how the doctors would treat the cancer. 

June

June was a big month for our family, we are finally complete with the birth of Jackson Seel Qureshi. He is our last baby and my third miracle child. I am amazed at all God has provided for us.

July and August

July and August were survival months, we were figuring out our new normal and trying to keep on keeping on. My mom found out that she needed to have four rounds of chemo and it was really hard to not truly be able to be there for her because of the new baby. 

September

In September we celebrated Kadyn's 4th birthday with a trip two visits to Disney. One trip was with just mommy and daddy. It was a really special time for her to have all of our attention. She got a special visit to the Bippity Boppity Boutique where she picked the most ridiculous hair style and got to wear her Ariel dress and get her make up and nails painted. Kadyn was in her version of heaven and loved every  minute of it! 

Then she went with her best friends Avery and Ella for a breakfast with the princesses. It was also Avery's birthday, so they love to celebrate together. 

Kadyn was so happy that grandma felt well enough to come celebrate

October

The best part of October was that it was my mom's last chemo treatment. She is a cancer survivor! I am so proud of her attitude and faith during this very difficult time. In every circumstance she praised God and even though she had some really rough days she was able to remain positive. Losing both breasts and all of your hair, in my opinion gives you the right to be pissed off, but she really took it in stride. She is such a pillar of strength and I am so proud of her!

And then there was Halloween.....

We all had fun! Especially Mr.Simmons

As you can see a so much has happened these past 7 months. We have had a lot of ups and downs, but we praise God for this journey he has put us on. God is so good and we are so thankful. I promise to not let this much time go by before we post again.